15 Ordinary Items That Are Evidence of Extraordinary Events

15. Tjipetir Mystery Blocks

On display in the Wrakkenmuseum, in Terschelling, Netherlands is a curious-looking rubbery block, dark in color, rectangular with rounded corners, about the size of kitchen chopping board. Engraved on the front of the block is the word, â€œTjipetir.â€ For many years, these rubber-like blocks have been washing up on shores along the United Kingdom and Europe. Sometimes they are found with bales of rubber washed up nearby. The word, â€œTjipetir,â€ is the name of a rubber plantation in West Java, Indonesia, from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The blocks are not entirely rubber, but gutta-percha, the gum of a tree indigenous to Malaysia and the Malay Peninsula.